Digital Dave

Musings on projects, business and life.

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Apr 23, 2008

AS3 Update: Reaching for Stars

Well, the progress on Reaching For Stars has come along pretty smoothly. I can’t say that I’ve had any major hurdles other than the hi scoring system, which is taking longer then I anticipated. So, in light of that, I decided to show it off anyway. I’m not going to lie, I chuckled to myself a little bit after I looked at my prior release. ;)

You should definitely have a bit more fun with this release. I know my girlfriend is enjoying it, even if she hasn’t had the pleasure of touching this particular release.

Feel free to share your experience. My last run through netted a 7000 point gain. Not too bad. Let me know if things seem strange, stupid, too hard, or not even fun at all and I should go back to playing World of Goo. *thumbs up*

And as always. The project is not complete. The last things I will be add to it is a high scoring system and a few more nasty treats. But this is essentially what the project will be.

Link to Reaching For Stars

Category: Coding

Tagged: , ,

  • http://trazoi.net Dave “Trapper Zoid”

    It’s not too bad. The first level seems a little dull, and the gameplay drags on a bit in the later levels. But for a learner project it’s a pretty good, complete package. Although I’m not sure about messages like “You’re not really that good…” :)

    Got a score of 7240, which I guess isn’t that bad.

  • http://trazoi.net Dave “Trapper Zoid”

    It’s not too bad. The first level seems a little dull, and the gameplay drags on a bit in the later levels. But for a learner project it’s a pretty good, complete package. Although I’m not sure about messages like “You’re not really that good…” :)

    Got a score of 7240, which I guess isn’t that bad.

  • http://skirmish.dreamhosters.com/devlog/ Stephen

    The game is far superior to your last posted version — you’ve done a really nice job with the polish. :)

    My two only real irks were that:
    1) There was no notification to the user when a star was missed, no animation or anything. It can be a little uncertain for the player when one was caught if you’re catching multiple stars in quick succession, since the ‘star catching’ animation is a bit long.
    2) Like Dave said, messages like “You aren’t getting enough stars” aren’t very helpful. In order to get players to want to keep playing a game, you generally need to motivate them by either rewards or encouragement. At the very least, let them know how many stars their goal is, or how many they missed, so it’s not so confusing.

    Awesome work!

  • http://skirmish.dreamhosters.com/devlog/ Stephen

    The game is far superior to your last posted version — you’ve done a really nice job with the polish. :)

    My two only real irks were that:
    1) There was no notification to the user when a star was missed, no animation or anything. It can be a little uncertain for the player when one was caught if you’re catching multiple stars in quick succession, since the ‘star catching’ animation is a bit long.
    2) Like Dave said, messages like “You aren’t getting enough stars” aren’t very helpful. In order to get players to want to keep playing a game, you generally need to motivate them by either rewards or encouragement. At the very least, let them know how many stars their goal is, or how many they missed, so it’s not so confusing.

    Awesome work!

  • http://www.david-mcgraw.com david.mcgraw

    Well, that didn’t work well. You guys didn’t catch the whole ‘portal’ rip off. Probably works better if I had a voice over… ;P *takes note*

    It’s not really supposed to turn into anything but a ‘fall-and-catch’ game. But since I have 5 days left to work on it I have some thoughts.

    To improve the ‘dull’ factor.
    1) Remove the ‘cleared’ screen, reduce the time, and add ‘bad’ stars (already planned).
    or
    2) Add clear goals, in order to progress to the next stage. On the bottom right, I’ll put 0/30 stars collected, and I’ll keep the timer rolling for 59 seconds.

    Missing stars. I have an idea for that. I didn’t even think about it being an issue.

    Thanks for the feedback! Really. *thumbs up*

  • http://www.david-mcgraw.com david.mcgraw

    Well, that didn’t work well. You guys didn’t catch the whole ‘portal’ rip off. Probably works better if I had a voice over… ;P *takes note*

    It’s not really supposed to turn into anything but a ‘fall-and-catch’ game. But since I have 5 days left to work on it I have some thoughts.

    To improve the ‘dull’ factor.
    1) Remove the ‘cleared’ screen, reduce the time, and add ‘bad’ stars (already planned).
    or
    2) Add clear goals, in order to progress to the next stage. On the bottom right, I’ll put 0/30 stars collected, and I’ll keep the timer rolling for 59 seconds.

    Missing stars. I have an idea for that. I didn’t even think about it being an issue.

    Thanks for the feedback! Really. *thumbs up*

David McGraw

Founder of iGotIt Games. Trader. Runner. Warrior. Motivator.